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(similar to the book printed for Emulation lodges),
the brethren of Alba have been able to individually
familiarize themselves with the ritual. Our brethren Ashlar Lodge #29
are hoping to make progress in the year to come, and
when we are ready to confer the degrees, we will ask New Degree Work
the Grand Lodge for permission to amend our charter
to work MacBride. Th e prospect is humbling, but
as we have learned from the brothers in our Grand
Lodge who work the Emulation Working, the Modern
Scottish Ritual, and the ritual of the Grande Lodge
Nationale Française, the more rituals one sees, the
more we all learn about the Craft in general.

MacBride wrote: “Th e ritual is the sound of Masonry.
But you must fi nd the soul in the sound.” More than
a mere process of memorization and repetition,
MacBride seeks to communicate to his brothers that
the ritual must be not just something that is done,
in a perfunctory sense, but an object of meaningful
study, something to be internalized so that indeed,
one can fi nd the soul in it. His poetic work serves
as a remarkably strong blueprint for Masonry as a
philosophical art, by putting the mind of the Mason
in a place where he can fully receive that philosophy.

-end-

WB Andrew U. Hammer

A.Muclrihsd, (R) Cody Catlin, WM Arnie
Frovarp, Blain Bond, and Nicholas Morris.
The Degree team did a wonderful job bringing
these gentlemen in.

"Th is article was originally published in Vol. 37, Iss.
4 (2020) of Th e Voice of Freemasonry in the Nation's
Capital, the offi cial membership magazine of the Grand
Lodge, FAAM of District of Columbia. It is reprinted here
by permission of the author and the original publication."

Montana Freemason Page 39 March/April 2021 Volume 97 No. 2